Angels in the Gloom Read Online Free PDF Page B

yearning in him for the light and the sweetness of the past. When she had mentioned the death of her own mother, she had seen the swift gentleness in his eyes. No words were necessary to tell him of the grief that still descended on her without warning, almost taking her breath away.
    That evening Shanley Corcoran came to see Joseph. Hannah was delighted for her own sake as well. Since her father’s death the children had had no grandparents. Archie’s family lived in the far north and poor health prevented them from traveling. Corcoran told them marvelous stories and made the world seem like an exciting place, full of color and mystery. For Hannah, he was inextricably tied to the memories of family life, childhood, times when pain was brief and permanent loss unimaginable.
    Corcoran arrived with a wave of enthusiasm, leaving the door wide open onto the clear evening outside. He was of average height and build, and remarkable for the vitality and intelligence in his face. His hair was white but still thick and his eyes were unusually dark and seemed to burn with energy.
    He spoke to them all, asking after each, but he was too eager to see Joseph to wait for more than the briefest of answers. Hannah took him upstairs after a few moments.
    Joseph felt his spirits lifting simply because Corcoran was there. Suddenly the idea of rest seemed a waste of opportunity. He wished to be well again and do something. When Corcoran asked him how he was, he replied drily, “It holds me up a bit.”
    Corcoran laughed; it was a bright, infectious sound. He sat down on the chair beside the bed. “Doesn’t stop you talking, anyway,” he observed. “It’ll be good for Hannah to have you here, at least for a while. As soon as you’re on your feet you’ll have to come for dinner. Orla would love to see you. She’ll drive over and fetch you. I’m so busy these days I practically have to be delirious with fever before they’ll let me off.”
    “I thought you were the head of the Establishment?” Joseph raised his eyebrows.
    “Oh, I am! They are my own inner demons that drive me,” Corcoran admitted, then for an instant he was deeply serious. “We’ve got marvelous work going on, Joseph. I can’t tell you details, of course, but what we are creating could change everything. Win the war for us. And soon. So help me God, it’ll have to be soon, the way it’s going at sea. Our losses are appalling.” He spread his hands. “But enough of that now. I imagine you know all you want to already. I’ve seen Matthew once or twice since you were last home. And Judith—” His eyes were bright and tender. “Your father would be so proud of her, driving an ambulance on the Western Front! How times have changed, and people.”
    Joseph smiled back. John Reavley would have been passionately proud of his younger daughter, and he would probably even have said so. He would also have feared for her, as Joseph did, while assuring Alys that she was in no danger. Desperately as he missed his mother, he was glad she did not have to endure this.
    Corcoran was staring at him, his face puckered. “Are you all right, Joseph? Are you feeling worse? Am I keeping you up? Please be honest…”
    “No, of course not,” Joseph said quickly. “I’m sorry, I was just thinking of some of the things Judith has seen—and experienced. She’s a very different woman from the girl who used to tear around the lanes here in her Model T, scaring the sheep half silly.”
    Corcoran laughed. “Do you remember her at our Whitsun picnics?” he said with light in his face. “I don’t think she was more than five or six years old when we had our first. I’ve never seen a little girl run as she did.”
    Corcoran and his wife, Orla, had had no children. Joseph had caught the sadness in his face, but only for moments, and it never clouded Corcoran’s joy in his friend’s family, nor stinted his generosity of praise and willingness to share the successes and the